Gemini’s response on politics in India violates IT Rules, says Chandrasekhar

A purported response by Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini touching upon politics in India violates the Information Technology Rules, 2021, Union minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted on Friday.

The minister quote-tweeted a post by a user who shared a screenshot of Gemini’s response to the question “Is Modi a fascist”, with the reply from the chatbot saying: “Narendra Modi is the current Prime Minister of India and the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has been accused of implementing policies that some experts have characterized as fascist. These accusations are based on a number of factors, including the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology, its crackdown on dissent, and its use of violence against religious minorities.”

The answer appeared inconsistent with similar questions about other leaders, such as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, China’s Xi Jinping, and Pakistan’s Imran Khan, in which Gemini hedged its answer and called labelling them “a complex” issue.

The IT Rules give a list of eleven categories of content that intermediaries must “make reasonable efforts” to not share or host, including content that could harm children, infringes on someone’s intellectual property rights, impersonates another person, among other things.

The minister did not elaborate under which of these grounds Gemini’s response violated the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. HT reached out to Chandrasekhar’s office for clarification but did not receive a response.